IT PERPETUATES AND RE-AUGMENTS ITSELF

“We have seen that excess begets inflammation, and that inflammation creates desire. Hence every new indulgence only re-augments the cravings of this propensity. As an inflammation of the stomach causes a morbid hankering after food, the gratification of which still further increases both the disease and the craving, so excessive sexual indulgence fevers these organs so that they call still more loudly for gratification, every new indulgence of which re-augments the inflammation and consequently the power of passion, till, like the letting out of waters, it rises and rushes till life itself is emptied out thereat, and both body and mind swept on to remediless destruction and woe! Indulgence is fuel to these already consuming fires of perdition. This propensity being to the sexual apparatus precisely what appetite is to the stomach, since as eating, so far from satisfying the ravenous cravings of the dyspeptic, only increases them, by re-inflaming the stomach; so sensual indulgence first inflames the sexual apparatus, and this re-increases both disease and desire till the entire system is drained of energy, and its victim dies.SOAP 227.1

“This passion, inflames by indulgence, becomes the horseleech of life and happiness, crying perpetually, louder and louder, ‘Give, give, Give, GIVE,’ but never enough; or the gluttonous tape-worm, the more it is fed, the more insatiate its ravages, till, after having devoured all the other powers and faculties of its miserable victim, it ends only in a death of all deaths the most horrible. Like the falling, perhaps, of an icicle on Mount Blanc, which gathers size and force as it descends, and now rolls heavily and rapidly down the steep sides of yonder towering cliff, anon bounds from peak to peak, sweeping their snowy sides and tearing up huge trees and rocks in its resistless course, till, leaping yonder yawning precipice, it plunges into the deep abyss, dashing to atoms both itself and all its prey, scattering ruin and death in all its course.SOAP 228.1

“Nor does this principle govern one form of sensual indulgence merely, but all its forms. It is inherent in all forms, and appertains alike to matrimonial, promiscuous, and personal indulgence in all their stages. Animals, one and all, before their first indulgence, experience only a moderate power of this impulse; but afterwards become uncontrollable. The less it is exercised, the more easily can it be held in check.SOAP 229.1

“Beware, then, O youth! how you unchain this roaring lion till walled in by wedlock; else propensity will haunt and goad you night and day, clamorous for indulgence, yet never satisfied till your ruin is complete. Indulge but once, and you will have no peace of your life, but will be dashed hither and yon, with those waves of passion into which “one false step” plunges you. If you have no regard for the sin committed, yet regard your own subsequent peace and happiness of life.SOAP 229.2

“Mark; we do not put this matter on its moral turpitude, but on its necessarily consequent evils and sufferings; first, because the latter involves the former, and is the cause or rationale of all sin - the reason why sin is sinful, as well as the measure of the sinfulness of sin, and because we thus appeal to the two strongest, and even the governing, motives of human nature; namely, first, to its love of happiness; and, secondly, to its dread of suffering. Not that it is not most sinful. It is morally wrong in exact proportion to its miseries which we have just seen to be so frightful.SOAP 230.1